


Tender We Fall

by geckoholic



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Happy Ending, Healing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 07:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12294051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/pseuds/geckoholic
Summary: Johanna smiles, and Katniss is startled to find the expression genuine, carry none of the mocking edge it so often does. There's an old saying about taking on the responsibility for a person's life if you safe it once, and maybe there's some truth in that. Maybe that made her care, even if she did it for the cause, not for Katniss herself.





	Tender We Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marginalia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginalia/gifts).



> The only prompt I had was a dislike for the epilogue, so hi, fix it. XD
> 
> Beta-read by navaan, and brainstormed with her and amorremanet. Thank you both!! ♥ All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Title is from "Basic Instinct" by The Acid.

It doesn't take very long for Katniss to lose track of how much time passes in her cell. Because that's what it is; that's what it was the first time she was confined to this room, and that's what it is now. Day and night are still discernible and she could keep track of that, but she sleeps when her body gives out on her, no matter the time of day, and it's too much effort to try and count whether it's still the same day or another.

She made it through the games, twice, through the revolution, and now the rebel government, the goal they were working for and that promises so many people peace, is what breaks her. But it doesn't matter. Prim is dead, and almost everyone else she knew and loved is lost to her one way or another. _Prim is dead._ Her reason for continuing, for fighting to see the next day, and the next after that, is gone. Nothing matters.

The door moves to let in a visitor and Katniss barely notices, much less cares. They can do what they want to her. It's fine. She'll deal, or not deal, as it were. Just one more stone in the basket tied to her back.

“They really did a number on you, this time, huh?”

It takes Katniss a moment to place the voice, and when she does she's actually surprised enough to react, to turn and tilt her head. “Johanna? What are you doing here?”

“Cashing in on my newfound elevated status to visit everyone's favorite bird.” Johanna shrugs, and Katniss glances down, notices she's holding a bag, old and worn, probably from the districts. “Or least favorite, now. It kinda depends on who you're asking, I guess.”

Katniss doesn't inquire which would be true for her, favorite or least. She sits up and groans, her body protesting the movement. She nods towards the bag. “What's in there?”

“Oh, this.” Johanna hefts it up higher and walks up to the bed, depositing it there. “Some clothes, something to eat. Everything they let me bring. Pretentious assholes.”

The way she talks hasn't changed; it could have been a statement from before the revolution too. _Revolution._ What a joke. Coin already had the makings of Snow in her, and yes, maybe it won't be as tyrannic and decadent as the Capitol, but they sure haven't brought on some kind of utopia.

Johanna smiles, and Katniss is startled to find the expression genuine, carry none of the mocking edge it so often does. There's an old saying about taking on the responsibility for a person's life if you safe it once, and maybe there's some truth in that. Maybe that made her care, even if she did it for the cause, not for Katniss herself.

“Come on,” Johanna says, plopping down heavily on the edge of the mattress, and zips open the bag. “Let's get some food in you, and then you can go change. I can't even _look_ at you in that paper thing they gave you. It's humiliating.”

Katniss squints at her, unsure of whether or not she trusts her change of heart, but there's cheese in that bag and fresh bread and she can already smell it, and her rumbling stomach makes her postpone the questions of motive and allegiance until later.

 

***

 

In the weeks that follow, Johanna shows up once every couple of days. She brings food and fresh clothes, books for distraction, and one time, a children's game made of sticks and marbles. She babbles on about the goings-on in the new state they helped bring about, and she doesn't spare anyone, doesn't hold back on her opinions. Katniss still doesn't care too much about the content of her retellings but she finds herself looking forward to them nevertheless. To the visits on the whole. To the company, the human contact.

And then there's the time when the door opens and it's not Johanna that visits her, and it’s not a visit at all. She's released, and shipped back to District 12, and for a while, she lives on top of a field of ashes and bones.

 

***

 

The desire to leave, to get away and live in a place where every step she takes doesn't bring on painful memories, develops gradually. The feeling of being needed, by Greasy Sae, by Peeta, makes her ignore it at first. That's been her reason to live for so long; other people. Prim. Her mother. Gale. Again and again, Peeta. She doesn't know how to run when there's someone who relies on her. It's not in her nature. She has a strong will, but she has never been selfish, couldn't afford to be.

Until one day, on a sunny spring afternoon, she looks out at the thin layer of grass and flowers that's beginning to cover the graveyard that was once her entire world, and she can't stand it anymore. She's not going to stay here the rest of her live, keep walking in the shadow of ghosts and loss. She helped free an empire. She can go anywhere. And so she does.

 

***

 

Katniss travels. Not by train, because she's had quite enough of that, but with small buses and by ship, sometimes catching a ride with a stranger on a horse carriage or walking beside a merchant on their way to a market. People recognize her, and she quickly works out how to determine whether they remember her as the Mockingjay that freed them or the poor, mad traitor, who among them enjoy her company and who will curse her under their breath as soon as she's out of earshot. She makes it all the way to District 9 that way, almost into District 8.

What stops her, in the end, is a familiar face in the crowd.

 

***

 

Her hair is longer now, a bit lighter in color, and the clothes she wears are plain, muted colors that weave around her body without making it stand out. She's chatting to a vendor, a basket on one arm, and part of Katniss wants to just walk on. There's no way to know if she'd be wanted, and as she watches Johanna move on to the next stand, this one selling flowers, poppies and wild roses and bluebells, she finds that a rejection would hurt her deeply. And because her journey, wherever it may lead, is about not getting hurt anymore, she walks on.

That's when Johanna turns.

Katniss sees surprise on her face, then doubt, like she thinks she's mistaking someone else for someone she wishes to see, and then her expression lightens with a bright smile. She nods towards the vendor and accepts the small arrangement of wild flowers being offered to her, pays and walks over.

“I thought you would never again set foot out of your beloved District 12,” Johanna says, even though her voice carries less venom than it once did.

Katniss shakes her head. “It's not the district I loved, but the people. And most of them are gone.”

Sadness flickers over Johanna's face, and understanding. “Yeah. I do know how that goes.”

She hooks her arm under Katniss's, and without asking, she walks them down a footpath away from the market and into the village, until they stop at a small cottage. There, Johanna releases her, and makes a sweeping gesture towards the house, surrounded by a wooden fence, beets of flowers in front, and a wheat field swaying in the breeze out back.

“Is this... yours?” Katniss asks, doubtful, and Johanna snickers.

“Yes, dumbass,” she says, then marches ahead to unlock the door and open it wide.

Katniss follows her inside. And she doesn't leave. She doesn't leave for a long time. There's never a question, an offer made and taken, a clear invitation. Johanna just goes about her daily life, and Katniss... Katniss finds a place where she is comfortable, and understood, and doesn't have anyone's demands to fill or needs to cater to. And it's not like Johanna caters to her; doesn't treat her like something to be fixed and healed. They talk in the morning and then Johanna puts her to work, and sometimes she stays during the day and sometimes she leaves and sometimes Katniss accompanies her, but sometimes she doesn't, attends to her share of the chores around the house or sit out back watching the wind play with the wheat, watching the clouds move above it.

It's one of those days, maybe a year into her stay, when Johanna returns from the market with her basket full of food and flowers, and sits down next to her on the small bench under the porch.

She sets the basket aside and puts her hand on Katniss's chin, gently tiling it her way. “Can I kiss you?”

The question is both a surprise and not unexpected; wished for, but never with full conviction, never something that carried too much importance. It was going to happen one day, or it wasn't, and both would have been okay. But as it is, Katniss nods, and Johanna smiles and brings their lips together, and it feels lazy and comfortable and _good_ , and somehow utterly inevitable.

Then Johanna leans back, her eyes sparkling with something that Katniss can't describe but knows her own will mirror, and and laces their fingers together on the bench between them. “The cornflowers seaming the field are beautiful,” she says. “We should gather some of them, bring them to the market. Maybe Lilia can sell them.”

 _We._ They both said it a thousand times over the past few months, casual and automatic, just part of any number of random conversations, but suddenly it carries a different weight. Katniss leans back and lets her gaze roam over the field, the flowers, their little place in this new world. “Yes,” she says. “We should.”


End file.
